Connection

1. Whole Person Learning and Assessment:Where Did Your Learners Travel This Year. . .and Who Needs to Know?

2. Connection Please tell us your • Name • Congregation • Role • And the first name of one learner in whom you noticed a lot of growth this year

3. On a Journey At this time in the cycle of the year, B’nai Yisrael are on their journey from Egypt toward the destination of Eretz Yisrael.

4. So are your students. . . Your learners have also been on a journey this year. They are traveling with you toward the “destination” of the noticing targets or outcomes you set for them.

5. Why Do We Notice? • To help learners know how they’ve grown and to set new goals for themselves • To inform parents about learners’ growth, to engage them in the process of goal setting for their children • To improve our practice as teachers • To deepen collaboration with colleagues • To figure out what’s working and to advocate for continued professional learning and innovation

6. Four Questions Will Guide Us

7. Question #1 • How do I know if my students have reached the destination Iset for them?

8. Question #2 • If they haven’t gotten all the way there, how can I tell where they are?

9. Question #3 • To whom do I communicate what I’ve discovered about my learners’ journey?

10. Question #4 • What can I learn from their journey that will help my teaching? • How can I help learners get closer to the destination? • What changes might I need to make in what I do?

11. So far this year. . . You have. . . • Established noticing targets • Created tools to determine if learners reached the targets; you gave the learners prompts and they used the tools to respond to them • Examined what learners produced with these tools NOW WHAT?

12. Question #1 • How do I know if my learners have reached the destination Iset for them?

13. Thinking Back • Put things in context: • Review the priority goal • Re-read your targets in the areas of Knowing, Doing, Believing and Belonging • Read through the prompts you created

14. Create a Chart to Keep Track TARGETS: K: D: B: B:

15. Consider All Learning Domains Pick one domain to start with . . .

16. Read the Group’s Work • Read through all the student responses in that domain • Categorize the responses as close, middle or far from the target

18. Close indicates the learner answered the question and demonstrates evidence of hitting or coming quite close to the noticing target. • Middle indicates the learner partially answered the question and is making progress toward the noticing target. • Far indicates the learner has not really answered the question and is making little or no progress toward the noticing target.

19. Question #2 • If they haven’t gotten all the way there, how can I tell where they are?

20. Examples • Noticing Target: Explains personal connections to Jewish history, Israel or the world Jewish community. • Age of Learners: Grades 6-8 • Prompt (Believing/Valuing): Why do you think it is important for you to learn about the Shoah, an event that happened many years ago on another continent? • Tool: Journal • Sample Responses: A. I think it is important to me to learn about the Shoah because it helps me remember to try to never let anything like it happen again. B. It is important because it shows us that we want to prevent things like it.

21. Next Step Using the chart, record whether your learners were close, middle or far in each of the learning domains— K/D/B/B

22. Examples • Noticing Target: Constructs an action response to an issue facing the Jewish community. • Age of Learners: Grades 6-8 • Prompt (Doing): Please list two things you can do in the future to prevent an event like the Shoah from happening again. • Tool: Journal • Sample Responses: A. Being non-prejudice against other races; choose leaders that will make equal rights B. I will stand up for the rights of the minorities or smaller groups.

23. Examples • Noticing Target: Uses vocabulary of values related to peoplehood. • Age of Learners: Grades 6-8 • Prompt (Knowing): What does it mean to “remember” and why this is such an important value in Judaism? • Tool: Journal • Sample Responses: A. Remembering is such an important concept in Judaism because it allows us to take good things out of things that happened in the past. For example, when somebody dies, you shouldn’t mourn, but remember the good times you had with that person. B. Remembering means to know things that happened in the past and still values the rules and traditions.

24. Examples • Noticing Target: Creates stronger relationships with classmates. • Age of Learners: Grades 6-8 • Prompt (Belonging): Please describe how learning about an event that happened to our people in the past, has connected you to your Jewish friends and classmates today. • Tool: Journal • Sample Responses: A. Learning about an event that has happened to our people in the past connects me to my Jewish friends by making me more comfortable around them. B. When we were listening to the Holocaust survivor speak I felt more connect to the people around me because most of our ancestors were in the same situation.

25. Work with a Colleague! Looking at and the students responses to the prompts and figuring out if they are close, middle or far is a task you could do in hevruta with a fellow teacher.

26. Chart TARGETS: K: D: B: B:

27. Question #3 • To whom do I communicate what I’ve discovered about my learners’ journey?

28. Communicating What You Learn Who are the audiences for the information you gather about student learning? • Learners • Parents • Education Director • Colleagues

29. Learners • Help them reflect on their own growth • Set goals for themselves

30. Parents • Inform them about student growth • Engage them in the process of goal setting for their children

31. Colleagues • Think together about the progress of all learners • Anticipate the learners they will teach in the future • Solicit input, support, feedback in thinking about your teaching

32. Directors of Education • Know what’s working • Share information with decision-makers • Advocate for continued professional learning with lay leadership

33. Question #4 • What can I learn from their journey that will help my teaching? • How can I help learners get closer to the destination? • What changes might I need to make in what I do?

34. Ourselves • Reflect on what we did that contributed to learning • Consider ways to strengthen the experiences we shape for learners • Recognize and address the needs of individual learners

35. Watch the T.I.D.E. come in. . . • Tool • Individuals • Domains • Experiences

36. Tool Think about the tool you gave learners. . . • Did they seem to understand the prompts? • Did help learners generate thoughtful, well-developed responses? • How could the tool be improved to generate better responses from learners?

37. Individuals Use the completed chart and think about individual learners’ responses . • Are there particular learners who struggled in one or more areas? What could you do to help those learners or learners like them? • Were there learners who gave especially strong responses? What might you need to do to enhance the learning of those learners or learners like them?

38. Domains Use the completed chart and think about the learning domains, K/D/B/B. . . • In which domains were your learners closest to the target? • In which domains were your learners farthest from the target? • What might explain these results?

39. Experiences Think back to the learning experiences your learners had in this unit. • Which experiences helped learners get close to the targets? • Which experiences could you provide to help learners get closer to the targets?

40. Question #1 • How do I know if my students have reached the destination Iset for them?

41. Question #2 • If they haven’t gotten all the way there, how can I tell where they are?

42. Question #3 • To whom do I communicate what I’ve discovered about my learners’ journey?

43. Question #4 • What can I learn from their journey that will help my teaching? • How can I help learners get closer to the destination? • What changes might I need to make in what I do?

44. Chart TARGETS: K: D: B: B:

45. Communicating What You Learn Who are the audiences for the information you gather about student learning? • Learners • Parents • Education Director • Colleagues • Ourselves

46. Watch the T.I.D.E. come in. . . • Tool • Individuals • Domains • Experiences

47. Reflection What is one thing you learned today that you will be able to apply to your practice either before the end of this year or at the beginning of next year?